Home burglary suspect nabbed in the Heights

NORM ROWLAND

Published
6:00 pm CST, Thursday, January 10, 2008

A 52-year-old man suspected of burglarizing homes in Frostwood subdivision, Bunker Hill Village and the Houston Heights was arrested last week in the Heights by Houston police as he apparently attempted to enter a home on East 22nd Street.

The suspect, Oliver Cecil Marrs, was charged with misdemeanor trespass by HPD but had previously been named on a felony burglary warrant issued by the Memorial Villages Police Department.

HPD investigator Mike Bortmus said Marrs has been linked to nine burglaries in the Frostwood area and seven in the Heights in addition to the two in Bunker Hill Village specified in the warrant.

Bortmus said the cases in the Heights and Frostwood areas would not be added to the original felony complaint.

“The D.A. doesn’t usually stack charges,” he said.

Marrs, who has a rap sheet spanning 35 years, is scheduled for arraignment Jan. 25 in the 248th Harris County District Court.

Houston Police spokesman Victor Senties said Marrs was apprehended after police responded to a call from a resident, who said Marrs had knocked on his door, then went into the backyard of the home when the resident did not open the door.

Senties said the suspect ran when police approached but was caught a short distance from where he was spotted.

Memorial Villages Police Chief Gary Brye said Marrs’ being named on the felony warrant was due largely to the investigative work of MVPD detective Eric Jones and detective Sgt. Kyle Sission.

Jones said MVPD’s investigation linked Marrs to the burglary of homes on Powderhorn Dec. 5 and Cobblestone Dec. 18. Nothing was taken from the home on Cobblestone, Jones said, but jewelry and computer items were stolen from the home on Powderhorn.

Bortmus said the nine burglaries in the Frostwood area were on Cobblestone, Broken Bough, Broken Arrow and Old Oaks.

Investigators said Marrs targeted his victims by calling them on a cell phone on which caller identification had been blocked. Several calls were made, they said. If none were answered, the caller assumed no one was home, leaving him free to enter the home without interference by breaking a window or jimmying a lock.

Telephone records indicate one home was called 27 times, Bortmus said.

The suspect obtained the telephone numbers from a library copy of a criss-cross telephone directory, Bortmus said.

What Marrs didn’t realize, said Jones, is that there are ways to trace telephones that have been blocked n and that led to his arrest.

After Marrs was identified, Jones and Sission began checking pawnshop surveillance tapes, Jones said. Some items believed to have been stolen by Marrs have been recovered, Jones and Bortmus said.

“But not very much,” Bortmus said. “A lot was traded to drug dealers, and pawn shops can sell anything they buy after 10 days.”

Both Bortmus and Jones said their investigations do not indicate that Marrs was involved in burglaries further west on Memorial in the Westchester area.